My Factory BillsA Tally alternative for small factories
Tally is the default accounting software in India for good reason: it has been around for decades, every CA can read a Tally backup, and it does proper double-entry accounting. If you are looking for an alternative, it is usually not because Tally is bad software. It is because of one of three specific frictions.
The three reasons factory owners look for something else
1. It lives on one computer, and you don't
A factory owner spends the day on the floor, at a supplier, or in the market — not at the desk where the Tally machine sits. Every bill, every payment received, every "how much does this party owe me?" has to wait until you are back at that computer, or be relayed to whoever is sitting at it. The information you most need is the information you can least reach.
2. Somebody has to know how to drive it
Tally is built around accounting concepts — ledgers, groups, vouchers, debit and credit. That is exactly right for an accountant and genuinely hard for everyone else. In practice most small units end up dependent on one person who "knows Tally", and when that person is on leave, entry stops.
3. The real cost is not the licence
The licence is only part of it. Add the operator who runs it, the machine it runs on, the annual renewal for updates, and the time lost when entry falls behind — and for a unit doing a few hundred documents a month, the total is well above what the software line item suggests.
Where each one fits
| Tally | My Factory Bills | |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Accountants doing formal books | Owners and staff running day-to-day billing |
| Where you use it | The desktop it is installed on | Phone and desktop, same account, in sync |
| Learning curve | Real — assumes accounting knowledge | Designed so a non-accountant can bill on day one |
| Offline | Yes — it is a local install | Yes — entries queue on the device and sync later |
| Double-entry books | Full, with balance sheet and P&L | No — registers and GST summaries, exported for your CA |
| Payroll and attendance | Add-on / higher edition | Included from the Growth plan |
| Multi-user | Multi-user edition costs more | Flat price, no per-user fee |
| Multiple firms | Supported | Up to 3 on Growth, unlimited on Business — one subscription |
| Typical spend | Licence + renewal + operator + machine | ₹159–₹799/month per account, all-in |
Be honest: when you should stay on Tally
We would rather you not start a trial that was never going to fit. Stay on Tally if:
- You need a statutory balance sheet and P&L produced in-house. My Factory Bills is not a double-entry accounting package and does not pretend to be.
- Your accountant is fast and happy in Tally. If entry is current and nothing is stuck, you are solving a problem you do not have.
- You depend on TDS, cost centres, or complex inventory costing. Those are Tally's home ground.
- Your business is trading, not manufacturing. Plenty of good trade-focused tools exist; this one is shaped around a factory's purchase-and-convert cycle.
When the mobile-first app is the better fit
- You are the one raising most bills, and you are rarely at a desk.
- Entry is chronically behind, so you never know your real outstanding.
- You want staff to enter bills without handing them your books.
- You run two or three firms and do not want to pay for each separately.
- Your CA only needs clean registers and GST summaries — which you can export any time.
You do not have to choose today
The common path is not a switch, it is a split: day-to-day invoicing, purchases, dues and payroll move to the phone, and your CA keeps doing statutory books from the registers you export each month. Many units run that way permanently and never migrate their accounting at all.
The practical test: for two weeks, raise every new invoice in the app while carrying on as normal otherwise. If your outstanding figure is finally current at the end of it, you have your answer.
Test it against your own bills
14-day free trial, no card. Export everything to Excel whenever you want — there is no lock-in.
Start free trial